The Essosi peoples' skin color and racism

[The Dragon King]

You really believe that the scene where the slaves lift Daenerys up and call her "Mhysa" is a depiction of racism and white domination over non-white people? Or the fact that the Valyrians are light-skinned and blond also racist? That's all there is to it really.

The show is cast mostly of white people, which is apparently racist. They insert minorities in certain roles where possible, and that's racist as well.

If someone wants to call you a racist they'll find a way of doing so, nothing to get worked up over.

[My_Name_Is_Reek]

I am assuming the TV show cut the character of Jalabhar Xho because they thought the peacock feathers would make him look too "exotic."

[Jasta11]

The crowdsurfing thing just had a bit too many undertones of a ''white savior'' complex; Dany's story already touches this a bit in the books, but the scene just magnifies it by how cheesy it was. But it wasn't racist, of course. The Valyrians and Quartheen being white is less a question of racism than just being weird; I can get over the Targaryens since they are magical and all, but the Quartheen live close to a desert and their women are half-naked all the time, and they still manage to be pale-skinned? That's pretty weird. Lighter in tone than surrounding cultures wouldn't be a bother, but it's said they're explicitely very pale which seems very unlikely. But not racist at all, either.

The only issue GRRM has is a bit of orientalism, mostly centered around Slaver's Bay. It seems he grabbed every Eastern stereotype he could find and crammed it into one culture. I mean, evil, cruel, greedy, stupid slavers who eat dogs, watch gladiatorial deathmatches and have impossibly elaborate clothes and hairstyles? Why not have them end every sentence with ''sahib'' while we're at it. Essos in general feels much more caricatural than Westeros (the Dothraki being another major example), and it's not only because we spend less time there since Braavos is much more full-fledged despite being the least visited location where PoVs are.

[Gneisenau]

Dany's Mhysa scene wasn't racist per say but does come off as the Westerners bringing FREEDOM to the uncivilized savages.

[Lord Reaver]

The only issue GRRM has is a bit of orientalism, mostly centered around Slaver's Bay. It seems he grabbed every Eastern stereotype he could find and crammed it into one culture. I mean, evil, cruel, greedy, stupid slavers who eat dogs, watch gladiatorial deathmatches and have impossibly elaborate clothes and hairstyles?

He does this all around, there's not more of it with the eastern people, but it might be more noticeable, for various reasons.

To take an example from Westeros, the Ironborn are very much the hollywood-carichature take on Vikings. But you don't see me crying out about Scandinavism (?) over it.

[PrimeRhaegar]

People will always find some sort of racism in everything. It is best to ignore them.

racism is not something that can be ignored man very naive.

[The Dragon King]

racism is not something that can be ignored man very naive.

He's talking about ignoring people, and if they see racism everywhere they ought to be ignored, and ridiculed when you're not ignoring them.

[Fat Trell]

The books can be construed as racist. Every Essosi culture we meet that isn't Bravvos(based on Venice) is either cartoonish evil(Slaver's Bay, Volantis, the Dothraki) or idiotically unstable(Pentos, any slaving society). Even the Valyrians burned and enslaved apparently hundreds of millions of people, then forced some to work in hell. Most cultures seem to be based around gluttony and opulence(Free Cities, Slaver's Bay, Quarth) or a cult of machoism so strict it refuses to allow soldiers to wear armor(Dothraki).

The scene from the show looks very suspect when viewed without context. That savior illusion should be well shattered during the next season once the viewers see how many mistakes Dany makes and all the strife she causes in the slaver cities. This will only be true however if HBO actually does Dany's character justice and stops whitewashing her actions and motives.

[Lord Reaver]

The books can be construed as racist. Every Essosi culture we meet that isn't Bravvos(based on Venice) is either cartoonish evil(Slaver's Bay, Volantis, the Dothraki) or idiotically unstable(Pentos, any slaving society).

It's not racism if you do it equally across the board. Which GRRM does. As I pointed out, the Ironborn are every bit as cartoonishly evil as the Dothraki.

[Lord Kevan]

Hell, see as how the Westerosi society is based on stupid, inequal and violent principes, we should probably accuse GRRM to do anti-occidentalism ^^

And I think the Ghiscari are more evil because slaverer than because orientals. The Norvosi, Lysian ect don't look basic villain as them.

[Jasta11]

He does this all around, there's not more of it with the eastern people, but it might be more noticeable, for various reasons.

To take an example from Westeros, the Ironborn are very much the hollywood-carichature take on Vikings. But you don't see me crying out about Scandinavism (?) over it.

I guess the Ironborn would fit too, but I can't think of any other groups that are such walking stereotypes. And at least the wannabee wikings get PoVs and some nuances; the Kingmoat, thralls not being slaves, Balon being able to name a woman his heir. The people of slaver's bay, however, seem custom made to induce violent puking in your average Westerner and to him, have absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever, or even have neutral characteristics. Their entire being, from their customs to their political structures to their entertainement, hell even their friggin diet screams ''hate these guys!''. They might as well be Orcs.

[Fat Trell]

It's not racism if you do it equally across the board. Which GRRM does. As I pointed out, the Ironborn are every bit as cartoonishly evil as the Dothraki.

Does Slaver's Bay have any character like Asha? Do the Dothraki have a Rodrik Harlaw? At the Kingsmoot we see many members of the Ironborn who would like for the fighting and rape to end. There is no Dothraki championing settling down and become ranchers. There are no Slavers thinking of becoming craftsmen.

I agree with you about the Ironborn being themselves cartoony, but they are a much higher quality cartoon imo.

None of this is to say I don't enjoy the chapters set in Essos btw. Though on your first read through their sheer volume is a little striking, the more you read the more you appreciate GRRM's world building there.

[Fool of a Book]

Did it ever occur to you that a pale-skinned race developing nearer to the equator might have been a CLUE, not a racist jab?

[Lord Reaver]

Does Slaver's Bay have any character like Asha? Do the Dothraki have a Rodrik Harlaw? At the Kingsmoot we see many members of the Ironborn who would like for the fighting and rape to end. There is no Dothraki championing settling down and become ranchers. There are no Slavers thinking of becoming craftsmen.

Slaver's Bay has the three people Daenerys chooses to rule in Astapor. Clearly there are people who want a different society. You won't find them among the slavers, though. Then again, you won't find many Ironborn who are against reaving among the reavers.

It has Skahaz Mo Kandaq, who for all his brutality is clearly opposed to the old order in Meereen.

Granted, with only one POV there (Daenerys), we see less nuances of the society than we do with the Ironborn.

[C0bR]

That's just the way of the world today

You are either with SJWs or against them

[The Kinkslayer]

It is known that because of long Winters there are albinos everywhere in Planetos.

..the Quartheen live close to a desert and their women are half-naked all the time, and they still manage to be pale-skinned? That's pretty weird...

Sounds as California to me.

The Valyrians where goat herders until recently (in evolutionary terms), and lived in the so called land of the long summer, so baring a Rhoynar style emigration from the lands of little sun (that nobody has ever hinted), the dragon lords being freaking albinos is a trope.

[Lord Reaver]

I'd like to point out that albinism is not restricted to people with fair skin. It occurs in all human, indeed in all vertebrates.

But it's a bit aside the point, since what the Targaryens have isn't albinism...

Regardless, it's a bit of a stretch to assume those traits were something the Targaryens had while they were goatherders.

[Fool of a Book]

er... albinism is lack of pigmentation, not caucasian pigmentation.

[Waylin Stark]

Quote from the Game of Thrones Wiki, and from GRRM regarding the depiction of the slaves in the show.

The final scene generated some negative attention from critics, who perceived colonialist undertones in having a platinum blond, pale-skinned aristocrat liberating a society of dark-skinned slaves.

Yunkai having uniformly dark-skinned slaves is technically inconsistent with the books, in which the Slaver's Bay cities took slaves from whatever population was at hand indiscriminately. Indeed, the books make clear that the slave-masters basically just "enslave" anyone they are able to overpower and slap chains onto. Even passing ships from the Free Cities will be attacked in slaving raids and the children sold into slavery. The books explicitly state that several of Daenerys' Unsullied are ethnically Lysene, who are characteristically blonde haired, light-skinned, and blue-eyed. "Slavery" in Essos is similar to slavery in Ancient Rome and Greece, which was based on socio-economic more than ethnic lines.

George R.R. Martin explained that the crowd of slaves was mostly composed of dark-skinned people as a side effect of filming the scene in Morocco using exclusively local extras.

Martin also reiterated that the "slavery" in Essos is much like the Greco-Roman version of socio-economic slavery: "Slavery in the ancient world, and slavery in the medieval world, was not race-based. You could lose a war if you were a Spartan, and if you lost a war you could end up a slave in Athens, or vice versa. You could get in debt, and wind up a slave. And that’s what I tried to depict, in my books, that kind of slavery.

"So the people that Dany frees in the slaver cities are of many different ethnicities, and that’s been fairly explicit in the books. But of course when David [benioff] and Dan [Weiss] and his crew are filming that scene [of Daenerys being carried by freed slaves], they are filming it in Morocco, and they put out a call for 800 extras. That’s a lot of extras. They hired the people who turned up. Extras don't get paid very much. I did an extra gig once, and got like $40 a day. It's probably actually less in Morocco since you don't have to pay quite the same rate. If you're giving 800 Moroccans 40 bucks each, you're not going to fly in 100 Irishman just to balance the racial background here. We had enough trouble meeting our budget anyway.

"I know for some readers, they don’t care about this shit. But these things are about budget and realism, and things you can actually do. You are shooting the scene in a day. You don't have a lot of time to [worry] about that, and as someone who has worked in television this kind of stuff is very important to me. I don't know if that is answer or not. I made that answer, and some people weren't pleased with that answer, I know. They are very upset about that."

I'm sure that answers your question.

[IRON BANK]

Some people complain due to the fact that the Valyrians and the Qartheen, as well as other Essosi peoples have pale skin, while living in a very hot and and almost desert-like climate. Some even said this shows unconscious racism from GRRM ("the mighty dragonlords had to be white, huh?" or something similar).

However, in the TV series we see that most people in Essos, especially Slaver's Bay, are dark skinned, with many different skin tones. Guess what? A lot of people complained that the scene in the season 3 finale where the freed slaves lift up Daenerys and call her Mhysa is racist, because it shows a white, blond and pale person being "worshipped" by dark skinned people. So, what's it going to be? Should the Essosi be dark skinned or light skinned? Cause both are racist apparently.

It is a fantasy series, How serious can one take it, when comparing it to the real world. Hello! Sci - fi fantasy. If you want your reality tell them to write their own story.